Decline Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game

If that % ever had any truth behind it, it probably came from games like The Breakout; the game was almost made by a single guy, other people mostly appearing on Additional Art , Additional Animation, Additional Story Design... the fact that they are "Additional" probably means they did little or did just low-level stuff, meaning those might be the interns. If that's the case, that game does have 80% interns, and I see no problem in that.

He's not laughing at their face, he's simply butthurt at how much money was wasted to make fucking 4 hours of a casual game, while he could have done 11 fucking games with that, almost all of them better than Broken Age. A sentiment that I share.

And one thing is a company wasting their own money with inflated budgets... the other is that company wasting the money it got form fans to make a game.

 

This video also mentions that Daedalic's animations are done in Photoshop and with "about" 12 frames per second, which apparently saves on expenses and animator training as well.

Also, a single artist did "almost all" of the backgrounds for Deponia 1-3. The lead designer scribbled every background himself first in pretty nice detail (Edna 1 style), then the lead artist did the backgrounds off the sketches. Very interesting stuff, actually.

 

I dunno, this forum has a confusing political orientation. I'm not sure if it's apathy or support for anything that will produce a Good Game, but it's weird. I remember people were okay with a taxpayer-funded German TBRPG before that got cancelled, and I find the use of (full-time, 3-6 month) interns to be a far nastier sin. Government enterprise or capitalist meathouse, hey, as long as it's not mainstream shit, right?

You will get lots and lots and lots of positive-sounding ex-Daedalic interns on the internet because those people want real jobs and a positive work history. It's an obvious outcome. The real question is whether it's ok to let all those people work for you for free, full time for 3 to 6 months. What are the social ramifications of that? It's a political question.

The fact is that Daedalic always seems to have 3-6 month full time internship openings on its site, and it has a reputation in Germany for using lots of interns. This is a studio that reports 120 employees with low project budgets, and cranks out game after barely-profitable game in recent years. You can say hyperefficiency and good management if that's what you really think -- they're certainly more efficient than the bohemian Double Fine -- but it seems like the sort of cost-cutting capitalist game factory that, while not bad, is not obviously the ideal either.

Double Fine has high costs in part because it tries to balance employee lifestyle with business. Daedalic has low costs because it clearly cuts corners to maximize profit. They're just different philosophies. Anyway, Double Fine sucks LOL.

 

Just to nitpick, but Daedalic's 120 employees don't all work at the studio. They're also a well sized publisher (their own games, Torchlight 2, Dragon Commander, Original Sin, Frogwares's Sherlock Holmes, a bunch of Telltale games), so a fair chunk of those 120 people is working on stuff far removed from game design.

And unpaid internships suck, but they're normal in Germany. Might as well shame Bioware for not offering full dental.

 

Political orientation aside, if you estimate 50% of the work is done by intern, Daedalic without interns should still be able to at least produce 5 games with 3 millions.

 

Yeah, it's not like anyone asked Double Fine to make 8 games with the money they received (even though they should've since they got 8 times the initial budget). The comparison with Daedalic is important to put things into perspective: A german company (full of interns or not) made several better-looking and better-playing games with the money DF used to make a half of one mediocre title.

 

I don't argue that on a gameplay level Daedalic's games are much more adventure gamey, than Broken Age. As for better looking? Meh, to each their own? Daedalic's games have standard cartoon fare graphics, with little to no animation, and the animation they have are not too detailed. Broken Age has a unique artstyle and good animation (you might not like the artstyle, but it is different enough from the rest of the games). Sure, those animations and the new art cost them a lot, I don't argue that. They should have cut on that. On the other hand, unique visuals are DF's thing, they do this in every one of their games.

 

Since when do the management practices or business models of a company determine their legitimacy, or the perception of their games? What about those assholes that spend years making their games for free? Are they somehow sullying Double Fine's reputation, or cheating somehow?

I think the Daedalic games do look considerably cheaper than Broken Age, but you are giving your money to people making $120k+ and living entirely in fantasy land when you fund DF. They even spend it all, and are broke all the time.

Also, the entire intro sequence to the boys world in BA, as well as other big sequences that made it into the game, were sketched/designed by their German intern Marius.

 

You can argue that Daedalic's games look like Eurotrash shovelware, but they definitely have their own set of styles for their series. It's hard to imagine any other game than CoS/Memoria looking like this:

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

 

If I learnt that a game company ritually sacrificed virgins in order to build the perfect RPG, I would probably wait for a Steam sale, instead of buying the game at full price.

As for the slaving assholes, they get to keep all the money in the extremely unlikely case their game sells. Not so with the proverbial intern.

No idea of what's the real situation at Daedalic, though.

 

80% of the people in the company working on 5-6 month internships? A 20 person team only having 4 stable members, losing 3 members each month and training 3 new ones? Either: 1.This is complete BS 2. Most of the work their is super-simplistic "put the red files in drawer A and the blue ones in drawer B" type stuff or 3. They have some super manager there that'd run circles around any manager I've ever met in my life.

 

I know the guys at Daedalic and while I'm not sure about their internal business practices they are a company that has been operating for 7 years and created numerous titles in that time. Keeping a company independent, creating original IP's for that about of time is no mean feat. It would be impossible for them to run as long as they have without having their systems working like a finely tuned machine.

They have also (up to recently) been focused on ONLY creating Adventure Games. That means that for 7 years they have put systems in place to create 1 genre of game. As you do something more and more you get more efficient at it.

If this was Double Fines 11'th Adventure Game in 7 years I have no doubt that their processes to create it would be a lot more efficient.

 

What the fuck man.

Firstly, EA has one of the better benefit packages in the industry. Including things like health care for significant others (regardless of martial status).

Secondly, EA actually, you know, pays the people working on their games so if they need/want dental they can use that money to get it.

I know you schtick is to subtly troll consistently, but you're going too far here. Using unpaid internships to do work on a product is unethical. In the US, it is actually borderline illegal. EA does get called out all the time on their own employment practices and how they are unethical. Which means the entire post is a straw man.

Do Daedelic interns get profit sharing?


Fuck you.

 

The "unpaid" internships are not unpaid in Germany. In the study-related internships they receive allowance, in the other cases there is legislation that forces the receiving company to pay a salary. Money wise it is practically slave labour, but in Germany you _can_ live with it, even (or especially) in Berlin.

And it is cheaper to develop games in Eurostania, with or without interns.

 

There's still plenty of proper unpaid internships around, but you can go on the dole, which reportedly affords a very generous life style, reminiscent of the last days of Rome.

You'll notice when unpaid internships are outlawed because all the German newspapers will shut down and every major cultural event will be canceled. Cutural festivals often have a 80-90% quota of completely unpaid intern workers here, but you don't see the internet going nuts about that.

 

I won't be giving any money to Tim Schafer again. Broken Age was supposed to be an old school adventure game, but it seemed to me to be the complete opposite.

 

Nobody knows if the 80% figure is correct, but I would be surprised if the average development cycle at Daedalic is much longer than 6 months. The German version of the first Deponia came out in Jan 2012, Chaos on Deponia in Nov 2012, and Goodbye Deponia in Oct 2013. In the meantime, they also made two Dark Eye games (June 2012 and Aug 2013) and Night of the Rabbit (May 2013).

 

33% off. That didn't take long at all.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/232790/

 

I'll buy it for 66% off at Easter.

 

Considering they were selling it on Kickstarter for $15 it isn't surprising. Especially when the game had more appeal as an unknown versus a 'finished' product.

 

Sure is selling well, though. Still in the top 10, and Steam ranks by revenue.

 

It's got a constant spot on the front page showing off its discount and it's still not selling as well as Walking Dead S2 at the same price and discount.
Though to be fair I'd guess Walking Dead has more brand recognition.

 

I really really hope they do well. Like it or not, Broken Age is keeping Adventure Games at the forefront of game news.

 

That's why I'm watching this game.

If this is a success, it might pave the way for a real (Sierra) click and point adventure.

 

Just like every single game Obsidian made paved a way for old school RPG.